Following the life of newborn infant, Emmanuel, this great contemporary novel of Quebec exposes a painful history central to the new consciousness that emerged in the 1960s known as "the quiet revolution." The story of Emmanuel and his 15 brothers and sisters spotlights the grinding poverty under the mental regime of the Catholic Church at its least enlightened and most inescapable. This insightful narrative documents the hardships and cruelties of their social condition with dark humor and passionate imagination as they endeavor to survive harsh schools, dreary convents, and hunger.

What anxiety grips Petites Cendres as he runs towards the sea in the sunshine on a warm tropical morning? Shouldn’t he be reassured by the thought that he now lives at the Acacia Gardens, a comfortable home where all find care, understanding, and healing? How can Fleur, the young musical prodigy, listen to the diabolical confessions of Wrath, the fugitive priest, without shuddering? And, can Daniel the writer finish his novel, the one he has been working on for twenty years, despite his sensitivity and empathy for all creatures, even if they are the most humble, like the lizard he inadvertently crushed under his sandal? With this latest novel, Marie-Claire Blais once again gives us a vibrant portrait that embraces the span of life — from birth to death and beyond. Her characters question their purpose and what will come after, as they are confronted by evil that lives and that has taken root.

Exploring contemporary life and the penetrating energy of youth, this novel follows Anna, an introspective, alienated teenager without hope. Anna and her friend Michelle have experienced what life today has to offer--they have experimented with drugs and sex and have taken dance and music lessons in an attempt to find some meaning in their existence--and yet they have rejected its premise and instead remain alone and empty. Chilling and often terrifying, this chronicle portrays two young women who are not bored but are instead without hope of finding peace or even living long enough to begin the search.

The first volume in the beloved novelist Marie-Claire Blais' prize-winning novel cycle - acclaimed as one of the greatest undertakings in modern Quebec fiction - reissued in a handsome A List edition, featuring an introduction by Lisa Moore. Originally published in 1995 under the title Soifs, the first novel in Marie-Claire Blais' masterful series won the Governor General's Award for French Fiction and was hailed by critics around the world as a tour de force, comparing Blais to such literary greats as Virginia Woolf, Dante, Sophocles, and Shakespeare. In this dazzling rendering, These Festive Nights, celebrated translator Sheila Fischman brings Blais' novel to life for English-speaking readers. A sun-drenched paradise in the Gulf of Mexico surrounded by the glimmering blue sea; Renata is convalescing on this island poised between two worlds: between great wealth and extreme poverty, between the past and an uncertain future, between the beauty of the world and the horrors of history. During her time here, Renata becomes tormented by thirst - for justice, for pleasure, for intoxication - while all around her, festivities are going on in joint celebration of the birth of baby Vincent and the end of the twentieth century. Over the course of three days and three nights a flock of characters assembles - an entire spectrum of humanity is depicted in the grip of doubt and suffering. In this swirling, baroque fresco, Marie-Claire Blais captures the essence of our apocalyptic age, rendering it in powerfully evocative prose.

Pauline tells her personal story of growing up through paradoxes and insights that blend social, religious, and moral textures. Her world is populated by people who turn to violence or sink into quiet despair--it is a world damned. Pauline, her family, schoolmates, teachers, and friends are driven by tempestuous individual imperatives and the social deprivation they encounter. Full of satire, fantasy, energy, and lyricism, this chronicle portrays a reality that neither poetry, nor dreams, nor Pauline's fantasies can weaken.

Through Genevieve--a woman struggling with an idealistic vision of love--a door is opened into the lives of the characters through which Marie-Claire Blais came to the forefront of feminism in Canada. Night after night in a club called The Underground, Genevieve and her friends live out their loves and their tragedies apart from the day-to-day life of the city. Each glance, each embrace, and each ensuing encounter weaves a profound matrix of human isolation, with transcendence found in the healing power of love.